Voice of the Opposition
by Elysian 13
Summary: In harsh circumstances over the years, Spike and Vi find comfort in friendship. Circumstances change, but how will they? Spike and Vi pairing
1. Friendly Intermission

**"Voice of the Opposition"**

**I.**

**"Friendly Intermission"**

* * *

Vi walked through the quiet house. The kitchen was dark. The dishes were washed. The shape of the appliances gleamed in the dark with almost unnatural clarity, as if this were a moment out of time. 

The door that led to the back porch was open. It was quiet outside. Almost preternaturally quiet. Sunnydale was dead.

There was a shape on the porch, at the edge of the dark. The shape of a man, black tee-shirt and jeans, sitting on the top step smoking a cigarette.

"Couldn't sleep?" Spike asked. He spoke to her without ever bothering to turn and look to see her there.

"Couldn't make myself," Vi admitted quietly. She approached and gingerly sat down on the step beside him. "I've been up all night. I couldn't go to sleep knowing I had only so much time . . . I couldn't go to sleep, knowing that in the morning I'm probably going to die. I couldn't make myself waste that much."

"I get that."

For long moments they simply sat there quietly. She sitting beside him as he thoughtfully smoked his cigarette and stared out at the brightening dark. A few soft voices could be heard from inside the house. Restlessness at these moments in history was as infectiousas any plague. How was it even possible to sleep?

"Is it always like this at the end?" Vi asked of him. "Waiting to live. Waiting to die."

"Don't rightly know," Spike answered. He nervously took a draw off of his cigarette and stared blankly out into the early morning gloom. "Haven't really been here more n' once myself. Wasn't the same. Back then I had all these grand visions of comin' up the hero. Savin' the lil' princess. Gettin' the girl. It all went tits up in the end. This time I'm not really going into this with any expectations. I'm not a hero. I've been . . . _disabused_ . . . of that notion. I'm just a man. Only a man. I'll stand up and simply hope it makes a difference. 'Here I stand. I can do no other.' " Spike fell quiet. He stared out at the dark for endless moments, his eyes dark and full of thought. He finally looked over at the small girl beside him. "How are you holdin' up?"

"Scared mostly," admitted Vi. "I'm terrified that everything is gonna go horribly wrong down there. That people are going to die, and I am the one who could have stopped it if only I was good enough. Look it me. You've seen me. I'm not exactly brave. I'm not strong. What kind of slayer could I ever expect to be?"

"We all do that, bright eyes," said Spike. "We all question ourselves. We're all bloody scared. I don't s'pect that's the kinda thing you'll ever get over completely. The trick is fighting through it. The trick . . . is winning in spite of that."

Vi shook her head ever so slightly. "That still seems like far too much." Her green eyes glistened. "I'm still trying to come to grips with it. I'm barely eighteen years old, and this is _it_. _This_ . . . is what I am. This is the point that is going to define everything I'm ever going to be. I just _hope_ I can do well enough to prove myself to you. Prove myself to Buffy. _Prove_ that I was at least worth all the time you spent tryin' to train me."

Spike shook his head dismissively as he put his cigarette out against the porch. "You don't have to prove yourself to me, Vi," he told her quietly. "You'll do fine. It was worth it just to have known you."

The fiery haired girl gifted him with a slight smile. "You too, Spike," she said. Her soft words came across with a quiet clarity. "You too."


	2. An Unexpected Coda

**"Voice of the Opposition"**

**II.**

**"An Unexpected Coda"**

* * *

Spike awoke to the feeling of a delicate hand gently dabbing his forehead with a slightly damp washcloth. The fingers were gentle against his skin. Kind. 

The kindness was a blessing. There was hardly a part of him that didn't hurt in some way. His arms and legs felt heavy, as if he didn't have the strength to lift them. And he felt so hot. The room felt stifling. The air felt heavy with it and weighed down on him in an untenable burden.

The damp washcloth on his forehead felt like the most profound kindness. Spike's eyelids slipped open, but there was little to see. The room was dark, and the shape of his benefactor was simply a dark feminine shape hanging over him, silhouetted in the little light that slipped into the room from the opened door opposite them. All Spike got a glimpse of was short, fiery colored hair.

Spike closed his eyes and drifted back into unconsciousness.

* * *

Spike drifted into wakefulness. His entire body seemed to hurt. His mouth was dry and tasted bitter. His head was pounding. 

He blinked at the sleep in his eyes and had a brief glimpse of the unfamiliar room he found himself in. He was laying in a bed with soft eggshell colored sheet drawn up over him. "W . . .Where . . ."

"Shhh," a soft, gentle voice scolded him. "Try not to move. You were pretty banged up when I found you. Between that and the fever you've been out of it for a while. Are you thirsty?"

Spike closed his eyes for a moment to collect himself and nodded. He felt her hold out a cup to him. Spike took the cup in his trembling hands and took a few tentative swallows. The taste of the water came with a clarity that it seemed like he had always missed. "Thanks."

"It's what I'm here for."

"_Vi_?"

"Yeah," the slender, red haired slayer confirmed. She was looking down at him with soft eyes. "Good to know you remember me. You stayed away so long . . . that I was beginning to think you'd forgot." She held one of her hands to his brow for a few long moments before taking it away. "Get some sleep. That fever was pretty bad. But it finally broke. The world will be here when you wake up."

Tiredly, Spike closed his eyes and settled back onto the bed.

* * *

"Chicken noodle soup," Vi said moments after she came through the door into Spike's room. She was carrying a tray, which she laid on the end table beside Spike's bed. On the tray was a bowl full of thick liquid. 

"Sorry if it's . . . I'm not a great cook," admitted Vi as she sat down on the bed to one side of him. "But there was a can. There was a microwave. I figured the rest out on my own."

Spike quirked an eyebrow. "Didn't put the can in the microwave, did you?"

Vi smiled. "No. I knew that much." She hesitated awkwardly. "My . . . My father used to make chicken soup for me when I was sick. I thought it might help you get better."

"It's great," Spike said as he picked the soup spoon from the tray. "Thanks."

She was quiet for a few minutes as Spike slowly ate his soup.

Spike stopped and laid down the spoon. He looked at her. "Vi, I have to ask. When you found me in that alley. The others . . . Angel? Charlie? Blue? Did they . . ."

Obvious sadness fell across the lines of her face. Moisture welled up in her eyes. She looked at him sadly. The words came softly. "I'm sorry."

Spike lowered his head. "Yeah," he said neutrally. "I thought as much."

"I . . . I had enough trouble saving _you_." A few tears escaped from her eyes and fell down across her face. "And by that time for most of the rest of them it was already way too late. I'm so sorry."

"I didn't expect to survive," Spike said quietly. "I hardly expected any of us to. I suppose I should thank you. And what do you know, yet another army of demons that wasn't enough to do in old Spike. I suppose eventually I'll get used to surviving these things." His eyes were bottomless pools. "I'm beginning to think I'll be here forever." Spike looked at her with the obvious question, "And the Council just sent _you_?"

Vi frowned and shook her head. "I'm not exactly what you could call Miss Popular with the Watcher's Council lately. And when I say Council you can read that as Mister Giles. Or Mister Quinlin. Or Mister Wyndham-Pryce. Hell, I hate the lot of them."

Spike snorted. "What the hell did Giles do that put a bug up _your_ skirt? I mean, not too fond of the blighter myself, but then again, he and I have . . . _history_."

"Issues," she answered blithely. "With all of them. I just don't like the way some things are happening . . . and when I speak up, when I try to change things, when I try to change it to something I think would be better for the girls, I keep slammin' into the same goddamn wall. '_That's not the way it's done, Miss McClanahan._' '_This is the way it's always been done._' After Sunnydale, when I first thought of a Council of Slayers, I just always imagined us standing up and making our own choices. I imagined having a say. Not this. It just isn't what I wanted."

"Imagine that," said Spike, a rare smile surfacing on his careworn face, "Shy lil' Vi, voice of the opposition."

Vi smiled back at him timidly. "A few days ago I finally just had enough. I just walked away. Told everyone I was taking some time off. Decided to pay a visit to an old mentor of mine. I'd heard this . . . _rumor _. . . that the guy had turned up in Los Angeles. And Giles said Angel was working for Wolfram & Hart. He said Angel had gone bad. Too far gone to help. And if you were with him, you were bad too."

Spike looked at her and tilted his head slightly. "And you didn't buy that?"

"Oh, I wasn't gonna trust that Angel guy for a second," Vi admitted. "I wouldn't trust him as far as . . . _Andrew_ . . . could throw him. I was part of a mission that raided and blew up one of their warehouses in Bristol. I saw some of the stuff that they'd done. Even fought one of their tac teams in Surrey. I knew they were nasty people. But I knew I trusted you."

Spike sighed. "I expect you'd be the only one."

"No," said Vi, shaking her head. Her quiet tone was as certain as daybreak. "Not the only one."

* * *

Spike helped Vi put away the groceries that she brought back to the hotel suite. He'd been cooped up inside the suite with her for the past week or so as he went about the process of recovery. It was just two paper sacks, only as much as she could comfortably carry up to the room by herself. 

She asked him something as she was emptying the sacks onto the counter. "You think you could explain the whole 'Spike is human' thing for me, 'cause I still don't get it?"

" 'm not sure there's all that much to explain," Spike said placidly. "Wes an' Angel had mentioned this prophecy that a vampire would become human after this great big ordeal at some point or another. I never really bought into it much myself. Seemed too . . . _maudlin _. . . for my tastes. Great, so called rewards like that are the stuff of fairy tales. They don't happen in real life."

"So you didn't, you know, come back as a human," Vi asked. "You were a vampire when you went into that fight in the alley?"

"Yeah."

"But you weren't when I found you!"

"Apparently not."

"So," Vi stopped to clarify, "let me get this straight, you went into an all for nothing, back's against the wall brawl with super powers . . . and in the middle of the fight, lost them." There was a peculiar look in the young slayer's eyes and then she surprised Spike by putting a hand up to her mouth and giggling, "Well that must have sucked."

"I'd imagine so," Spike responded dryly, though his eyes betrayed his smile, "but to be honest I don't remember much around that part."

Laughter danced in her eyes as she added, "I can't imagine why."

After a few moments she gave him a more serious look. "Spike, seriously though, how are you handling it? I've only been a Slayer for . . . god, just a little over a year now. Not that long, I s'pose, but I can't imagine ever living without it. It's _. . . become_ me. It's how I define who I am."

Spike paused in the act of putting a box of ice cream in the freezer. "I don't know," he said thoughtfully. His words came just a bit slowly, as if he was taking the time to consider them before he spoke them aloud. "It's different. I s'pose if I ever considered it I would have expected something more . . . I don't know . . . _redefining_. I would have expected to feel . . . _different_. _Changed_. Something less or more than I was. Instead I'm just _me_."

Vi gave him a heartening smile. "Well I don't think that's all that bad."

* * *

Spike and Vi sat together on the bed playing cards. "Gimme two." 

Spike dealt her two cards out of the deck. Her face betrayed nothing as she slipped the two new cards in with her others and discovered her new hand.

"Raise you six," she said finally, dropping her coins in the middle of the bed.

"I call." Spike smirked as he laid his cards face up on the bed.

Vi cursed heatedly and tossed down her own. "Shit! That's eight hands in row you've beat me. I could swear you were cheating," said Vi. At a glimpse of the smug expression on Spike's face she suddenly snapped, "Hey, wait a minute, you _are _cheating! Why you rotten, no good, stinking . . . _Vampire!_"

Spike chuckled as he collected his winnings, which weren't exactly extensive. They'd been playing for pennies. "Former vampire. Seems like a good reason not to argue moral decay on my part."

Vi chuckled. "You really are an ass!"

"Emphatically."

* * *

Spike and Vi sat on the floor in the dim hotel room kitchen in front of the refrigerator. The only light was from the dim light fixture over the sink on the other side of the room. A half-gallon box of ice cream was open on the floor between them and they each had a spoon in their hand. 

"One thing I'm not clear on," said Spike, lowering the empty spoon from his mouth. "The other day, when we were talking about all your problems with the Council, where's Buffy in all this?"

Vi sighed. She took the time for another spoonful of ice cream before she answered the question. "I guess that's the question," she said almost neutrally. "Buffy left England and moved to Italy. Maybe a month, month and half after we first got there. She's retired . . . at least as far as the Council is concerned. It wasn't a power play to push her out anything. Not this time. She just . . . _left_. Decided she'd had enough of it. And with all of the shit she's dealt with in her life she has every right to do that. It just, you know . . . makes things harder."

Spike gave her a measuring look. "If it's so bloody difficult why not just cut yourself loose? Sod the lot of them. Why go back?"

"I love my job," Vi responded simply. "I like knowing that I mean something. I like to know that I make a difference. I _love_ saving the world. And I am _so_ good at it.

"That and . . . _loyalty_," Vi said after a few long moment's careful consideration. "To my friends. To the younger ones. I have a loyalty to them. I have a responsibility. To protect them. To make things better. But I can't. The Watchers have the money. The Watchers own the real estate. The Watchers have the control. What do we have? If Buffy hadn't left I'd say we have her. The rest of us really don't have anything."

"Yes they do," said Spike. "They have you."

* * *

Vi came through the door visibly upset. She roughly unshouldered her jacket and tossed it into the corner behind the door. She was wearing an airy pale green blouse and tight blue jeans. She seemed tense, as if her every muscle were on the verge of springing in every direction all at once. "What the hell is it with the vampires in this town?" 

Spike was sitting at the table watching her. He was clearly enjoying her angry tirade. A book lay on the table where he had put it down. "What set you off, bright eyes?"

"I went for a walk," she said. "Wasn't even making any real effort at slaying. Just wanted to clear my head. I came across this vampire. Big guy. He was a little tall, maybe six-three, but close to three hundred pounds. Lots of tattoos on his arms. Battered motorcycle jacket. Shaved head. Face like a moose."

"What's the problem?"

Her face twisted with disgust. "He came on to me."

Spike suddenly laughed out loud.

The fiery haired slayer gave him an irate look, "It's not funny."

"It really is," Spike replied, not bothering to hide the laughter in his eyes.

Glaring at him for a few long moments Vi's resolve visibly crumbled. She chuckled. Mirth danced in her sparkling green eyes. "Okay," she said, "maybe a little." She was smiling at him now. "But that is _so _not the kind of attention I want."

"I don't imagine it would be," he responded laconically. His eyes teased her. "But you know what they say, if you're not willing to try new things . . ."

With a smile and barely contained laughter she said, "Shut up!" After few moments Vi opened the door to the freezer and looked inside. Her search seemed to come up fruitless and a few moments later the freezer door slapped shut. Vi paced the kitchen restlessly. She rolled her shoulders. She seemed to be full of nervous energy. She opened the cabinets, looked inside each of them, and then closed them. She opened the freezer and looked inside again.

A faint, amused smile marked Spike's face as his gaze followed the girl around the kitchen. "Is there anything in particular that you'd be looking for in there?"

"I was hoping that there was some of that ice cream left from the other night."

Spike shook his head dismissively. The disappointment that fell across the girl's face was almost comical. "We finished the whole bloody carton."

Vi turned and walked across the kitchen and picked up her jacket from the corner. "You just came back."

"Well, I'm going back out again."

Spike arched an eyebrow at her. "For ice cream?"

"For ice cream."

Spike looked at her thoughtfully, "You're not pregnant, are you?"

Vi stopped and looked at the former vampire standing opposite her. He was wearing a gray tee-shirt and blue jeans. He had bare feet. One corner of the slayer's mouth lifted. "I see you never quite lost your . . . _charm_." She chuckled. Vi stopped and seemed to consider that thought for a moment. "I'm not sure that's exactly comforting." Her expression was resolute. "All I know it that I want ice cream, and god have mercy on anyone who gets in my way because I'm in a mood to crack some heads."

Spike seemed to take this as a challenge and stepped in front of her. His blue eyes teased her.

"You're asking for it."

Vi playfully struck out at him. Spike carelessly parried the blow away and pulled her back against him, his arms wrapped around her . She stopped. Vi wordlessly looked up at him over her shoulder. Wide emerald eyes looking up into his filled with quiet excitement and a slow smouldering realization.

Spike slowly leaned down and pressed his mouth against hers in a gentle kiss, a kiss she quickly began to return with vigor. Spike's hands glided down the length of her body, across the pale green fabric of her blouse, like velvet beneath his fingers, to where her jeans clung tightly to her hips. One of his hands drifted up under the bottom of her blouse, pressing against her bare skin. Her midriff, tight with muscle, slender, soft beneath his fingers.

Her eyes were half-lidded. She seemed to be lost in the smell of him, the taste of him, the feeling of his expert hands on her skin. Their mouths drifted apart, but they were still lost in each other, their mouths were the barest fraction of an inch from coming together again. A thoughtless moan escaped from Vi as Spike's hands explored her body. His fingers grasped the bottom of her blouse and lifted it up her body. She raised her arms and allowed the soft fabric to disappear and fall to the floor.

She stood in his arms in nothing but a lacy green bra and blue jeans. Spike leaned in again and they fell together into another kiss. Vi slowly turned to face him, her arms coming up and around his muscular shoulders as their mouths moved together.

One of her hands slipped off his shoulder and quickly drifted down across his body, feeling his muscular arms that clung to her with fierce abandon, the shape of his muscles through the gray tee-shirt he wore, his six pack abs down to where they disappeared beneath the edge of his jeans. The small hand slid down the front of him and pressed against the jeans where his hardened cock pressed firmly against the fabric. Her fingers cupped him there possessively, felt the way he seemed to swell to fit her hand, felt him thrust out against her touch almost unconsciously.

Spike raised his arms and she lifted the tee-shirt up and off him, discarding it carelessly. He stood before her shirtless and Vi's fingers glided across his bare skin.

He lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Lost in kissing him, she felt as he carried her across the hotel suite.

Vi laughed childishly as they fell together onto the bed.

She lay there and watched reverently as Spike settled over her, her red hair splayed out on the pillowcase around her head. Then something suddenly passed across his face and he stopped. They faced each other breathlessly.

" 'm sorry" Spike said reproachfully. Her emerald eyes seemed to be silently studying him. "I shouldn't be doing this. You're just a little girl."

"Funny," Vi said rationally as her fingers softly brushed across his brow. "It's been a long time since I felt like one. At least it feels like it's been." Their eyes met across the small space that separated them. He still lay firmly on top of her and didn't seem to be making any effort to change that. Their bodies felt oddly relaxed together. Her fingers slowly brushed an errant lock of hair back and away from his brow. "You and I are friends, Spike. I love you. We haven't done anything wrong."

She moved forward just the tiniest bit, tilting her head just a little to conform herself to him and ever so softly pressed her soft lips against his. For a moment they were still, a pause on the moment, and then their mouths moved together briefly before they drifted apart.

Vi smiled hesitantly.

She slowly came up to meet him and kissed him again. The kiss started languidly. Reassurance. A slow shedding of doubt. A quiet acceptance. An expression of all of those things that were bigger than the words that could ever try to hope to express them.

As the kiss deepened, Spike slowly became more proactive. His hands slipped across her, exploring her curves. Vi settled her arms around his muscular shoulders.

Spike's mouth drifted, to her cheek, her chin, down to the hollow of her throat. His fingertips grazed her skin with constant motion. He placed a gentle kiss on her collar bone as he slipped down out from under her arms and discovered the gentle swell of her breasts. His mouth made short teasing explorations around the edges of her bra. His expert hands released the clasp and the soft green fabric lifted up and away from her bosom, leaving her bare to him from the waist up.

His soft touch followed the outside curves of her breasts, discovering the shape of her. Soft kisses, his lips caressing her fair skin. His tongue, briefly sampling a taste of that skin. Taking a dusky nipple into his mouth and suckling gently.

Vi was gratifyingly responsive. Soft breathy sighs rewarded his every touch. Her flesh quivered with his attention.

His attention slowly moved further down her body. Vi's body was slender. Toned. It was the body of an athlete. Both soft and yet firm with muscle. His mouth teased at her navel. His fingers followed the curves along the side of her midriff, a gentle curve inward and then out again toward where her jeans clung to her hips.

And then he was unsnapping the button on her jeans and sliding the zipper to its base. Vi lifted her hips slightly to allow him to slide the jeans down her legs and slip them off her. Her soft green panties followed a moment later.

She was naked before him. Completely bare. And she appeared to be perfectly comfortable with that. Unashamed.

Gently, Spike eased her legs apart. His fingers slowly drifted down the inside of her thighs, along the soft silky skin, to the patch of auburn hair where her legs came together. She gasped when some of his fingers found her center. The heels of her feet dug into the bed, unconsciously thrusting her slim hips up into his touch. She moaned when his questing fingers parted her folds and found the tiny bundle of nerves there. His thumb ran circles around her clit. Her moans turned into a breathy almost scream when he leaned in, hands now pressed against the inside of her thighs on either side, holding her legs apart, and tasted her for the first time. His mouth sucked gently at her, prodded, explored, delved deep inside of her, until she didn't know what he was doing. For several endless moments the feelings he engendered seemed to overwhelm thought and reason.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god!"

Her whole body felt like it was strung too tight and would pop at any moment. Then she felt it coming. Felt her muscles clenching. Her thighs trembled beneath his hands. Air deep down inside her escaped from her open mouth in loud exaltation.

"_Oh god!_"

Spike and Vi's hands slid together palm to palm. They thoughtlessly laced their fingers together as he slowly pressed into her, stretching her. Vi's mouth opened, her head tilting back on her neck, and let loose a soft breathy gasp.

They were still together for long moments, and then they started to move. They started to discover the way they felt together, the way they fit, the way their motions complemented each other. The way '_they_' complemented each other

Smiling, Vi looked up at Spike's serious face above her and began to giggle. After a moment, looking down at her face, Spike was laughing with her, even if the laughter never quite got much further than the smile on his face and his sparking blue eyes, but they never stopped moving. They never stopped enjoying each other.

She was quivering around him.

His name slipped from her lips in a soft, breathless voice.

He slammed into her one final time, emptying his seed deep inside of her as her muscles clamped down on him.

Vi smiled up at him.

Spike and Vi lay replete and satisfied together on the bed, their limbs comfortably entangled. They were each glistening faintly with sweat. The bed sheets clinging to their skin a little.

"Oh what the hell," said Spike, "let's do it."

Vi looked at him, confused, but with a smile on her face. "What!"

"I was just thinkin' aloud, is all," Spike told her. There was an almost thoughtful look on his face. "About some of things you said. About the Watchers having the money. The Watchers being the ones with the power. I was thinking about what you said about wanting to get some back." At this Vi's attention became more focused. "I know how to access certain accounts. Stuff that I s'pose is left over now that everyone else is gone. There's not a lot, but it might be enough."

Vi gave him a look of surprise. "You'd do that?"

"Why not?" Spike smiled at her. "There's certainly not love lost between me and those wankers on the Council. Always did like me a little . . . _mischief_. Hell, the look on Giles face when we steal his slayers might almost be reason enough."

"Me and you!"

"Me and you," Spike responded. "Anyhow, like you said, can't help but . . . feel a little loyalty. I taught you. Each of you. You . . . Molly . . . Trisha . . . Rona . . . 'manda. . . . You're my girls. Even those that are gone. If any of you all ever needed my help I'd do what I can. And you're right, they deserve better." Spike gave the girl a slow look. " 'sides, after all the trouble you went to to convince me I'm not about to . . . _Ow!_"

"_You son of a bitch_," said Vi, her eyes sparking with righteous anger as she lowered her small clenched fist. "How could you . . . You know it wasn't about that."

"I know," Spike responded in a quietly reasonable voice. He lifted her slender hand to his mouth and pressed a brief kiss to the back of it. "I just can help windin' you up a lil' bit."

"That really wasn't nice."

"I'm not a nice kinda guy."

Vi giggled as he pushed her back onto the bed and settled over her.

"No," said Vi smiling. "Not a nice guy at all."


	3. V for Vendetta

"**Voice of the Opposition"**

**III.**

"**V for Vendetta"**

* * *

The slender red haired girl, wearing dark clothes and with a knapsack thrown over her shoulder, walked alone down the alley between warehouses. She abruptly stopped and looked both ways. Seeing no-one, she lifted a rifle she had been hiding against her side and aimed it up in the sky just over the angular roof-line of one of the warehouses and pulled the trigger.

The noise seemed loud as the grappling hook went out, trailing a length of rope behind it. Vi dropped the rifle and began to climb. Within moments, she was on the roof.

She reached into her pocket and remove a phone and a length of wire with an earpiece on it. Vi put the earpiece in her ear. She pressed and held down one of the buttons on the phone for a second or so until it automatically began to dial. The phone rang once before it was picked up.

"I'm in," Vi said curtly.

"_According the to the blueprints from the planning office there should be a skylight nearby that you should be able to use to get inside."_

"I see it, Casey." Vi unshouldered her backpack. From within it she produced a rope and tied it off, dropping the other end into the darkened room below through the open skylight. Sliding the pack back onto her shoulders took hold of the rope and stepped back to the edge of the skylight.

"_Be careful, Vi. You know what you're walking into."_

"That's why I know it has to be done." Without another word Vi slipped back into the darkness.

* * *

It was well known among those that worked for him that Dunhaven didn't like to be disturbed. But if disturbing him was necessary he wouldn't bite your head off, which wouldn't exactly be an uncommon penalty in the business they worked in.

Cameron entered Dunhaven's office. The boss, Dunhaven, was sitting behind the desk in the middle of a large dark office. The only major source of light in the room was around the desk in the middle of it where the boss was sitting.

Dunhaven was a mid-sized man. He was neither large nor was he particularly small. He had dark hair. It was his actions that defined him, and this man was capable of being incredibly ruthless and cruel.

"Sir," said Cameron quickly. "Something's off. Samuel and Fitzpatrick aren't answering any radio calls."

"I think it will be quite a while before you hear from either of them again," a voice spoke up. A dark figure stood framed in the doorway. There was light behind her, but the figure remained cloaked in it's own shadow. "But, then again, theology was never exactly my thing."

Dunhaven stood up from his desk quickly. "Who the hell are you?"

"I am the vanguard," Vi answered Dunhaven cryptically.

Cameron lifted his radio and murmured quietly into it.

"A single, vibrant-haired vixen, a valkyrie, vowed to vouchsafe the world." The slender red haired girl moved a few steps closer, a casual playfulness visible in her every movement and tugging at the corners of her small, thin mouth. "I am the vexation of a veritable variety of villainous vampires, vehement and voracious in their vileness and violence. Though vaunted in my venture versus the vampires, my verbiage has become very much . . . _verbose_. Any more than that, for the moment, will remain strictly _verboten._" She smiled teasingly. "A girl has to have some secrets. But, I suppose, holding ourselves to at least a veneer of veracity, you may simply call me Vi."

A voice laughed softly in Vi's ear. "_We really have to keep you out of Andrew's comic book collection. It's starting to get to your head."_

Vi simply allowed herself a quiet smile.

"So you're like a crazy person."

"I've been called worse. Often by people who like to call themselves friends. But what is crazy anyway? Is it crazy to walk into a building that's full of people who would love to see you dead?" Vi glanced over as a few guards came into the office. She seemed unconcerned as they kept their distance from her. "Then call me crazy. I've done it more than once. But, when it comes down to it, I prefer the term . . . _Slayer_."

"Slayer." The word didn't seem to phase Dunhaven at all. He spoke it the mildly curious way of someone who as discovered something just the slightest bit odd. "Vi the Vam . . ."

The words were cut off with a silent drawing of breath. Dunhaven's eyes had gone wide as he looked at her.

"You're Violet McClanahan." Despite himself he had taken a step back. In spite of that it took Dunhaven only the briefest moment before he had collected himself. He now looked at her with a far more calculating eye, and certainly with far more interest. "You're the one they call the Untamed Flame. The one bright spot in the Watcher's Council's brand new army of mediocrity. You've made quite the name for yourself. Oh, I've heard of you."

"I see our reputations precede us," Vi replied. A coldness had slipped into her voice. A harsh chill that would give even the most battle tested of soldiers pause. "I wish I could say yours was as sterling.

"Brian Michael Dunhaven, born in Glasgow in nineteen seventy three. A _murderer_. A wannabe mafioso. Certainly someone who doesn't shy from using vampires and demons as his enforcers in his hopes of carving himself a little empire. A man who was confronted by operatives in the employ of the Watcher's Council on more than one occasion in the past few years. Some of the operatives ended up dead, others with the most ghastly of injuries. Like your other opponents, the Council never stopped you, never managed to strike a decisive blow, but they forced you to be cautious. They certainly made your gradual expansion slower than you might have hoped.

"But," Vi looked around almost carelessly, "you seem to have flourished since the Council floundered." Expensive art and a few elegant pieces of furniture filled the shadowy edges of the room. "Business is . . . good.

"But here is where the story takes a particularly tragic turn. Two weeks ago, more or less, you came across a girl. A spunky little blond thing named Mika Hughes. Fun-loving, a free spirit I think people would call her. Certainly not without a particularly colorful vocabulary. Your "_boys"_ gave her a particularly rough go." Vi cast a cold look in the direction of the shadowed figures in the far reaches of the room before her eyes came back to Dunhaven. "I'll spare you the details, because I can't stomach them. She spent the last week or so in the hospital. You see how I'm not smiling. Mika is one of my sisters, and I _really_ don't like it when people fuck with my sisters.

"For that crime, among your many others, the penalty is death." She delivered the sentence in a cold and merciless voice. "You have two choices here, Brian. You can die quiet, or you can die screaming. It's your choice."

"I think . . ." Dunhaven cast a nervous look around. His gaze went from his soldiers and then back to the single girl standing against all of them again. "I think you overestimate yourself."

"Do I?"

Dunhaven simply looked at her for a long moment.

"I think we're gonna have to play this one out, princess. I'm not exactly the die quietly kinda guy." He glanced meaningfully at his soldiers, which had begun to spread out in anticipation of the combat that was to come. "And whattayaknow, I like my chances."

Vi smiled nervously. "I think this one's gonna be messy."

"I think you're right."

The next moment was chaos. One of Dunhaven's men moved and suddenly the small girl exploded into motion.

A knife flashed across the room and one man fell to the floor with an abrupt cry.

There was a sword in Vi's hand. The sword came around as one of the men came at her. It sliced into one side of his neck, across, and down into his opposite shoulder, taking his head away from his body. The man was betrayed as a vampire a moment later as the body crumbled into ash.

Dunhaven's men were professionals, but Vi moved through them like water between fingers, and one body fell to the floor after another. Severed necks. Spilled guts. Her sword dealt with most of them, but at least one guard died in grotesque spasms as a momentarily distracted Vi was forced to reach out and rip his throat out with her bare hand. She ended up covered with his blood.

She turned from this barbarity to see Dunhaven standing opposite her, raising his hand, palm out. Fire erupted out of his hand, exploding out at her. Vi rolled out of the way of the fireball as the floor where she was standing turned blackened and cracked. She twisted out of the way of another fireball a moment later. A statue standing against the wall behind her cracked like thunder beneath the intense heat.

Vi stepped sideways this time, avoiding a third fireball, but she had finally gotten in close as Dunhaven backed up toward the wall, and her sword swept down, cleaving his hand clean from his body. The final stroke came as Vi drew her sword back and stabbed it straight through Dunhaven's chest and into the wall behind him. His mouth opened in silent agony. His eyes bulged out.

"For Mika," she told him in that final moment as she twisted the sword. Moments later she pulled the blade free and the body fell limp limbed to the floor in a pool of blood.

For a long time after that everything was quiet. Just Vi standing silently in a room with a whole mess of bodies. Her arms fell to her sides. The bloodied sword slipped out of her loose fingers and fell to the floor.

After an undeterminable moment she came to realize someone had been calling her name.

"I'm still here, Casey," said Vi. "I'm still here."

"_So it's finished then."_

"No," said Vi, as she unshouldered her pack so she could fetch the digital camera from her bag. "I don't think it ever will be."

* * *

"This is good work, Vi," Giles said distractedly as he looked down at the glossy photographs, vivid in all their horror. Blood stained surfaces and the pained faces of corpses on display in haunting clarity. "Very good work. I'll fax these over to MI5. I can't say that they'll be particularly sad to see this bastard go."

Vi looked at him incredulously. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

Giles glanced over at her. "What do you want me to say, Vi? You knew this was a kill mission when you went out. Human or no, not even the government wanted this son of a bitch brought in alive. It's a little late to worry about the pinch of morality."

"Not about him, Giles," Vi responded harshly. "_Fuck_ _him_. I'm not losing any sleep over that bastard. Not a fucking wink. I'm talking about Mika. You knew what you were sending her into, and you sent her alone."

Still holding the photographs Giles took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses briefly. "Adversity helps build us. We get hurt and we pick ourselves up. How else are we ever to discover what we are capable of? When Buffy faced the Master she became stronger for it. I was trying to help Mika discover that for herself."

"She was raped, Giles. It's not like she's home recovering from a few bruises and a slight shock to her ego."

Giles frowned. "That's not something I enjoy being reminded of. But it's a risk every one of our girls takes when they walk out into the dark."

"And there is a difference between a small nest of vampires and some kind of fortified crime syndicate that has lasted this long. It was a fucking mafia, Giles. Organized. Efficient. Ruthless. Sending a green slayer into that was just asking for a corpse."

"There are things I regret," Giles admitted sadly. "But every slayer has to learn what it's like to be alone against the darkness. Every slayer has to find something inside to give them the strength to persevere in spite of that."

"But that's kinda the point. Mika never had to be alone."


End file.
